Monday, 18 October 2010

Keef!

like many I have been enjoying the extracts from Keith Richards' memoirs, it is an entertaining read and he is a good bloke who just happens to have written some of the greatest popular ditties ever. I did notice that he wrote to Tony Blair telling him to stick to his guns on Iraq. Mick Hartley, a blogger new to me, notes that some on the loathsome racist Comment is Free at the Guardian have noticed too, and hits them on the head rather pleasingly, like this:

"The revelation that Keith Richards wrote to Tony Blair on the subject of Iraq - "I wrote him a letter telling him he had to stick to his guns. I got a letter back, saying, ‘Thanks for the support.’” (Times interview, behind pay wall) - has naturally ruffled a few feathers. At CiF, Guardian music critic Dorian Lynskey tells it like it is: the Stones are Rock's fake rebels. Yeah! All that stuff about revolution and that...they're really just in it for the money! "We shouldn't be surprised by Richards' reactionary words", he sagely concludes.

Yes I know - shocking stuff.

The thought never occurs, of course, that in a context where virtually the whole cultural establishment, in a display of deadening conformity, went out of their way to voice their opposition to the Iraq war, Richards' support was in fact a nice display of that rebellious iconoclastic streak that makes him such an appealing figure. And the notion that it's reactionary to advocate the removal of a genocidal tyrant also goes unexamined, as being too obvious to require further explanation.

Some good comments - for instance:

Richards is a working class lad from Dartford - amongst other things, he was probably rebelling against being patronised by men called Dorian."